Saturday, November 8, 2008

Obama Set to Reverse Bush Rules

President Bush's outgoing administration is reportedly quite busy preparing a rush of executive orders in an effort to lock parts of his legacy in place after he leaves office. For his part, President-Elect Barack Obama is said to have a team of four dozen transition staff of his own assigned to ferret such orders out so that Obama can countermand them as rapidly as possible. Here are some of the areas under scrutiny.

Back in March Obama was on the primary stump in Wyoming. The Denver Post reported Obama told a crowd in Casper, Wyoming in March that he would as president reverse every unconstitutional executive order such as the "use of warrantless wiretaps and a willingness to hold prisoners without charges."

Having secured the nomination, Obama paid a visit to Capitol Hill in late July. There, according to the Associated Press, he vowed to order his attorney general to expunge any of George W. Bush's orders that "trample on liberty."

Another area under scrutiny by the Obama team is likely to be the environment. The Bush White House is currently reported to be preparing large-scale relaxations of air and water quality regulations. Speaking in Nevada, AP reports Obama said, "I think the slow chipping away against clean air and clean water has been disturbing." He added, "Much of it hasn't gone through congress. It has been done by fiat."

Yet another avenue of executive order action could be on stem cell research. In August Obama domestic policy adviser Melody Barnes told NPR Obama, "believes that upon being elected president he could sign an executive order that would overturn the Bush position on stem cell research."

Obama has made clear that the financial crisis and weak economy will be his first priorities upon taking office, with energy policy close behind. Still, such news as this makes it apparent he will be moving on several fronts at once, and quite a bit of it may be under most people's radar.

2 comments:

Paul Myers said...

Thank God. If, as you noted in your previous post, Buchanan and Hoover were failures because they came on the scene during troubled times and failed to do the right things, then what does that say about our current chief executive, who took a robust economy and high international prestige of our country and drove them both into a gigantic hole?

The question is rhetorical.

Steve Natoli said...

Indeed so. Bush will no doubt deservedly be rated very low when the next historians' survey comes out, probably in 2010.

Hoover, of course, took office when things were going swimmingly but the crash and Depression subsequently set in and he was unable to improve the situation.